by Eileen Roth
1.Purge and sort. Gather the family and go through all your tapes and discs, purging everything that no one’s watched or listened to for a year. Cries of extreme sentimental value can be accommodated, but remember that you can always rent videos as well as borrow movies and music from the library. As you go, sort items by like format — videotapes, video discs, audiotapes, and audio discs.
If your cast-off CDs still have popular appeal, take them to a used CD store for cash. You can also donate CDs and commercial videos and audiotapes to a library or school.
2.Categorize. Group like items by genre or category. Alphabetize titles within each category. Using the artist’s or composer’s name for audiotapes and the show name for videos is usually the easiest method.
Audio categories may include classical, jazz, rock/pop, rhythm and blues/soul, rap/hip hop, blues, country, musicals/soundtracks, world/folk, children’s, and books on tape. For video, consider categorizing by movies (subdivided into drama, comedy, musicals, and foreign if you have a lot), television shows, entertainment (concerts, magic shows), children’s, sports, exercise, how-to, and home videos.
3.Position for access and contain.
Devise your optimal storage strategy by comparing your space to the number of pieces you need to store in each format and identifying where you can most easily reach. Containing options for your audiovisual software include:
•Drawers in the media unit, in a freestanding unit, or under tables. I like these options because they keep everything out of sight.
•Bookcase or wall shelves. Shelf-top tape and CD holders keep everything in place, or you can use bookends to organize items by section and prevent tumbling tapes and discs. Wire shelves won’t work here.
•Spinning turntables.
•Freestanding towers.
Figure 9-2 illustrates one idea for media storage. Whatever you choose, make sure you can keep all the pieces in a given format together.
4.Identify your media. Make sure you have as much fun as your collection can offer with some basic media management:
•Create a computer list — a database, spreadsheet, or even just a word-processing document — of everything in your collection by category. Keep an updated printout in a drawer of your media center as an easy-browsing menu.
•Label all video spines with program and length.
•Name, number, and date home videos. Protect them from getting erased by punching out the rerecord tabs.
•Keep one videotape for each family member for recording favorite shows over and over. Label the tape with the individual’s name and the show if it’s always the same.
Figure 9-2: Enlightened entertain-ment storage options include stackable audio, video, and CD drawers.
Just the highlights: Home video editing
Improve the production values of your home videos by editing as you shoot or later. When we first got our video camera, we went crazy. We have two tapes of a Caribbean vacation and have rarely watched more than half an hour of either. Then there was our 6-month-old Mindy; now that she’s 20, it’s really not that fascinating to watch her bouncing in a seat for 10 minutes straight. Daughter number two got less footage, and Julie’s tapes move along at a much more scintillating pace. Take your extra-long home videos to a professional studio and have them edited down to highlights. This is also a great opportunity to have your old 8 mm film and slides transferred to video so you can enjoy them more often. Just be sure to date, number, and log your originals before you let them out of your hands.
The Computer Equation
In homes without an office, the family room may be the only place to put a computer. The downside of this strategy is that one family member may want to watch a movie or listen to mind-numbing heavy metal music while another is trying to do homework or balance the checkbook on the computer. Rules may need to be set — such as homework assignments come first — and having a spare TV in another room can help ease their enforcement.
If you don’t like the look of a computer in your family room, you can buy an armoire designed to keep it under cover. Refer to Part IV for a full discussion of cool computing.
A personal note for family shutterbugs
On a trip to Europe, I soon realized that postcards had better pictures than I could capture of the Eiffel Tower and other notable places — plus the postcards were already captioned. I hit the postcard stands for the famous views and kept my photos focused on my friends so I could see their faces and remember the times we shared. You can try this too.
For pictures you want to share, order double prints when you develop the film. If you want more than two copies — for instance, for a group picture — take multiple shots.
I remember how difficult splitting up the family photos was when my mother died — so when my girls were born, I started each one with her own album right away. I always take important shots twice and order double copies so I end up with four — one for me, one for each girl’s album, and one for grandparents.
Managing Your Precious Moments: Photographs
The cherished memories in your photo collection can become a clutter problem fast. Shutterbugs can benefit from a few friendly photo tips. First, purge the lemons: There’s no prize for hanging on to bad pictures, so give them the boot. See? You can reinvent the past. After you’ve picked through and found all of the ones that are blurry, too far away, or where the subject’s eyes are shut, you can manage the ones that are worth keeping efficiently by doing the following:
Label and date. Match the moment to the memory by labeling and dating each envelope as you get it back from the developer. If your camera doesn’t have a date stamp, date the backs of pictures too, and note the names of nonimmediate family members for when memory starts to fade. Never use markers, which can bleed; art stores sell special blue pencils for writing on the backs of photos.
Display. What’s the point of photos you never look at? Enjoy your pictures by putting them in frames or a photo album or scrapbook right away, or make a date with yourself to do it at least once a year (more if you’re a frequent photographer). Some frames hold several pictures so that you can make your own collage. Have fun creating family history collages, and then hang them in the hall so everyone can remember where they came from.
Scrapbooks: Assembling a scrapbook is a great family project. Choose a snowy or rainy day, or if your kids are in college, steal a few hours over break. Check out scrapbook stores chock full of things to jazz up your book, from funny quotes to fancy borders and stickers. If you prefer to seek professional help, there are specialists who teach design ideas and let you make multiple visits to their facility for advice and the camaraderie of other scrapbook creators.
Store safely. Preserve your photos by keeping them in acid-free boxes or albums made with acid-free paper. Shoebox living can age photos fast.
Books and Bookshelves: The Library
I know you’re not a librarian, and it probably shows. You don’t have to know the Dewey decimal system to bring order to your reading matter, though. Here’s how to lighten up the library. Go through your books and purge all the dinosaurs, which include the following:
Outdated or irrelevant reference books (such as the college guide if all of your kids have graduated)
Novels you won’t read again (Who reads anything twice anymore?)
Outgrown children’s books
Old textbooks
Anything you don’t expect to open in the next year (unless it’s a classic). Information is now easy to access and quick to change, so don’t clutter your bookcase with yesterday’s news.
Donate unwanted books to a library, school, or senior home, or sell your best titles to a used bookstore.
Arrange your books on the shelves by category, grouping like with like. For fiction, you can categorize by novels, short stories, plays, and children’s books. Good nonfiction categories include reference (dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesaurus), biography, his
tory, religion, English, arts, science, math, health/medicine, crafts/hobbies, travel, and photo albums, scrapbooks, and yearbooks. Within each category, alphabetize your books by author. Ease access and be kind to your case by keeping heavier books (think reference) on the bottom shelves and lighter ones (paperback novels) on top. Resist the urge to stack books two rows deep, as you may never see the ones in back. If you purged and still have more books than shelf space, it’s time for a new bookcase. Look for one with adjustable shelves so you can change the height to suit hard covers or paperbacks. Measure your space before shopping to be sure your dimensions match. Twelve inches depth is plenty of room for books, videos, or tapes.
Clutter or Current: Magazines
Magazines come out every week or month for a reason: You’re supposed to read them now and move on. Keep only the current issues of magazines and purge the rest — yes, even if you haven’t read them. If you later discover that you missed the only tell-all interview with your favorite movie star ever printed, you can find it at the library. (Schools sometimes use old magazines for various projects, if you’d rather donate than toss.) Assess your subscription portfolio. Do you really need everything you receive? Is there a magazine you haven’t gotten to for the last three issues? Are you reading some of them online? Do you subscribe to a weekly news magazine simply because you think you should only to have it lie around unopened week after week? Are you tired of some of the titles you’ve been receiving for years? Call to cancel any superfluous subscriptions.
The whole magazine: Rack ’em
Contain your current magazine issues in a rack. As each new issue arrives, rack it up and discard the previous one. No doubling up.
You can use your magazine rack to store current catalogs too. The same rule applies: Toss out the old as you rack up the new. If you receive catalogs you don’t want, call and ask to be removed from the mailing list.
Articles: File ’em
For good magazine management, mark the table of contents of each issue as you get it and tear out any articles you want to read. (If you’re sharing with others or like to browse the ads, you can pull the articles when the time comes to throw the magazine away instead.) Staple each article together and place it in a To Read file that you can take along on commutes, to the doctor’s office, and so on. See Chapter 16 for more on how to filter information flow.
Some people are prone to collect magazines that cover their profession or hobby to serve as a reference. If you’re not referring to back issues more than once or twice a year, you’re better off tossing them and looking up information at the library or on the Internet as needed. However, if you find yourself flipping through your old magazines a few times a month, they may qualify as a viable resource. You can retrieve information fastest by tearing out articles that interest you and filing them by subject, so when you want to know if you should use the wedge or the five iron to get out of a sand trap, you need only pull out the folder labeled “Golf — Sand Trap” rather than pore through three years of your favorite golf magazine indexes. If you must save whole magazines, keep no more than a few years’ worth (after that the articles probably repeat) and store them in chronological order, grouped by year in magazine holders that sit on the bookshelf. Label each holder with the magazine title and issue dates.
Games, Toys, and Collections
A family that plays together stays together, but how do you keep your fun neat? Most families accumulate quite a few games, toys, and collections in the course of having fun. I’m all in favor of being fully equipped to play, and only ask that you give all your playthings a place.
Keeping games fun(and organized!)
If the family room is your prime game-playing area, buy a closed cabinet that can contain everything behind doors. A bookshelf is a less scenic alternative. Infrequent gamers or those just as likely to play in another room may put your gaming center in the playroom, basement, or hall closet, keeping just a couple of family favorites — cards, checkers — in a drawer in the den.
Keep electronic games by the TV on which they’re played in clear storage boxes or special units designed to hold them, such as the one in Figure 9-3.
The toy crate
Toys need to be mobile when you have toddlers so that you can keep the kids amused as you herd them around the house under your watchful eye. While that’s the case, keep a crate of toys in the family room so you don’t have to chase up and down the stairs in search of a bear or truck. When the children are old enough to play in the playroom or their bedrooms without supervision, move the toys and eliminate the crate.
Figure 9-3: Sleek storage for electronic games.
Photo courtesy of Lillian Vernon.
Stamps, coins, shot glasses, and spoons: Collections
Collectors of coins, stamps, shot glasses and such tend to enjoy showing off, and the den is a good place for their displays. Whether you arrange your collection on a shelf, in a shadow box, or in a hanging wall display, make sure everything is easy to see — that is, well-spaced and at the right height. You don’t want to hang your rare coins so high that no one can read the years. A glass enclosure can help preserve a valuable collection. Many collectors’ clubs offer complete guidelines for storing and protecting your precious goods. If your collection is of less visual than personal interest, it may belong in a bedroom instead.
Now that you can actually find the movie you’re looking for, I think everyone deserves two hours with their feet up and a gripping story on the screen. Doesn’t your family feel more functional already?
Chapter 10
Organizing for Fun: The Playroom
In This Chapter
Setting the stage for creativity
Creating play centers for one-stop fun
Purging the playroom without tears
Advanced toy management
Crafting art supply tricks
Making a multigenerational playroom
P lay is important to people of all ages, but for children, amusement is a 24/7 job. The mess that can come from hard-core fun makes a separate room for play a great plan. Not only does a playroom keep toys, crafts, and games out from underfoot in the rest of the house, but a playroom also provides young minds with a special place to let their imaginations soar.
Children learn as they play. Show your kids how to keep the playroom clean and organized, and you’ll give them a powerful tool for productivity and clear thinking that can last a lifetime. P-L-A-C-E provides the framework for your cleaned-up playroom. Here is how you employ it:
Purge: Throw away or donate outgrown, unused, and broken toys, including games and puzzles with missing pieces. Pitch old or duplicate-color crayons, dried-out markers, paints, and glue.
Like with like: Put items into play centers — toddlers, dress-up, playing school, and so on. Place game pieces and puzzles into resealable bags and onto shelves. Arrange books by category.
Access: Put all large equipment, such as indoor slides or train displays, at one end of the room, and potentially dangerous or messy art and craft supplies in a childproof cabinet near their use. Keep small toys such as marbles and doll accessories higher up, out of the reach of smaller children who can choke on them.
Contain: Place toys into containers by type and age group or individual. Add labels for quick identification and to help younger children learn to read. Put art and craft supplies into separate containers or rolling carts.
Evaluate: Do children and adults feel free to play, create, and make believe in this room? Can children find and put away their own toys? Do games and puzzles always have all their pieces in place? Do you feel safe leaving your children here unsupervised? Is there a space for every sort of fun your family likes?
Positioning the Play Centers
The playroom can be conducive to creativity and to cleaning up afterward. Much of the action in this room takes place on the floor, so tackle that first and work your way up. A nice, soft carpet is great for ground-based games and play, bu
t carpeting can also take a beating from art supplies and spills. My favorite solution is indoor/outdoor carpeting, which I initially installed with an eye toward a possible flood in our basement playroom, but quickly discovered two additional perks: Accidents can be vacuumed up or washed away with soap and water in a flash, and toys are easily pushed across the flat pile into piles for quick pickups. Genius!
Now for the fun part: Creating your worlds of play. You know how a grocery store stocks the pastas next to the sauces so you can pick up dinner all in one aisle? You can do the same in the playroom, setting up centers for various activities and age groups that make each spot a different adventure. Play centers are actually nothing more than an imaginative version of fingertip management and access, putting fun within easy reach.
One play center might include toddler toys, while another part of the room is set up to play school. The dress-up center can contain clothes and a mirror for showing them off; the building center could be stocked with builder sets; and the music center gathers together instruments, tapes and CDs, and players. If you have big equipment such as a slide or trampoline, establish an action center at one end of the room.
Your play center arrangements may need to change with your children’s interests and ages. Freshening up the playroom with periodic repositioning keeps everyone interested in its organization, and provides an excellent opportunity to purge the cast-offs as you go.